EOIs invited for trainee research projects on end of life care for aged care residents with advanced dementia

ImPaCCT (Improving Palliative Care through Clinical Trials) is seeking expressions of interest from first-year palliative care trainees to conduct their research projects on data from a  large-scale study called the IDEAL Project currently in progress and expected to end in November 2014.

The IDEAL Project is a randomised controlled trial of case conferencing for improving quality of end of life care for aged care residents with advanced dementia. The project is collecting a wealth of data from 20 aged care facilities on family and staff perceptions of the quality of care as well as detailed information on the care delivered and resident, family and facility variables that may be influential. Data available for analysis as part of a trainee project include:

• Audio recordings of case conferences in which medical and nursing staff develop advance care plans for residents via discussion with residents’ family members. These data offer opportunities for assessing the quality of shared decision-making and advance care plans developed.
• Discharge summaries relating to hospitalisations of residents with dementia. These data could be used to describe the hospitalisations experienced by patients in this group and (in association with an expert panel) the quality of care received.
• Detailed data relating to the last 4 weeks of life for residents with advanced dementia who have died whilst on study. These data could be used to assess the appropriateness of care decisions over time as residents deteriorate.

Other data are available where trainees have a particular interest that the investigator team considers worthwhile for informing improvements to care.

For more information, please contact the lead investigator A/Prof Meera Agar via 02 9616 8654 or meera.agar@sswahs.nsw.gov.au